"The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than infidelity." -Francois de La Rochefoucauld

57 days sober

“Do you like it here?” Dad asks halfway through dinner on Wednesday night. I cast a blank glance around the room and say, “What, in the kitchen? Uh. It’s okay. I… like the living room better, I guess?” He sets down his fork without even rolling his eyes, and that’s when I know that this must be a Serious Conversation, because Dad never passes up an opportunity to pity himself for having to put up with me. Instead, he says, “Not the kitchen, Garen. Connecticut. Or, Lakewood, more specifically. Do you like your school? Your life here?”Not at all, is my instinctive thought. I set my own fork down and scratch the back of my neck, choosing my words carefully. “It’s okay. There’s not really much to do around town, so that’s probably why I spend so much time in New Haven with the guys instead. School is… my teachers are fine, I’m doing well in most of my classes. I like doing the play, and I guess most of the people in it are pretty cool.” “You were pretty popular at Patton, weren’t you?” he asks. “Yeah. I mean, Jamie and I both were. It was kind of… us, in charge of the rest of our group,” I say. Why do I get the feeling that this is some sort of test that I’m unprepared for? “And here?” Dad asks. “Are you—do you have a lot of friends at Lakewood High?” I snort. “Sure, Dad, everybody loves me. That is, when they’re not punching me in the head, or trashing my car, or pouring my own scalding hot coffee all over my vulnerable flesh.” He frowns—shit. That’s right; I hadn’t told him about the coffee thing. To stop him from inquiring further, I quickly continue, “It’s not like I’m completely friendless. I have people I eat lunch with every day, and—Nate likes me. Riley, John, and Annabelle are all cool. The person from school who I hang with the most is probably Travis, when his psycho-bitch girlfriend lets him out of his cage long enough to play. But for the most part, no, I don’t really have many friends at school. Not many people there like me.” “Are you happy here?” he asks. I respond with a shrug that we both know means no. “Were you happier at Patton?” I respond with another shrug that we both know means yes. “Would you like to transfer back there at the end of this semester?” My heartbeat thunders to a stop within my chest. “Would I—wait, transfer back to Patton? Like, for the second half of my senior year?” “I’ve been in contact with Headmaster Samuels,” he says, steepling his fingers together. “He was very understanding about the expulsion from Lakewood last spring, once I explained that you missed your classes due to a home situation that had you staying with your mother instead of me. He said that, provided your GPA remains above a three point three and you prove you’re capable of meeting the requirements for senior-level physical training, you would be more than welcome to finish out your senior year there, instead of here, at Lakewood.” I stare at him, utterly incapable of forming a response, or a single word, or a thought. Patton was my home for three years; Dad asking me if I want to go back there instead of staying in this wasteland is pretty much on par with the idea of Travis casually turning to me halfway through English class and saying, “Hey, I’m kinda over this whole Joss thing. If I break up with her after school, do you wanna go for coffee and then let me suck your dick twice a day, every day, for the rest of our lives?” It’s too good to be reality. It’s too much. “Do you think that I should?” I ask slowly. He sighs. “Garen, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss having you around when you were off at boarding school. And I’d also be lying if I said I was looking forward to the possibility of five more months of constant phone calls from your headmaster about the sort of things you used to get up to at that school. Do you realize he had me on speed dial?” “He did not—” “Number two. His wife was number three.” Dad pauses, scowling down at the table as he relives the horribleness of that conversation. I let him have a moment to sulk before I clear my throat, and when he looks up at me again, his eyes are just… sad. “You haven’t looked in the mirror much since the fight last week, have you?” “Why would you think that?” I ask. Kind of a stupid question—I haven’t spiked my hair since last Wednesday because I don’t want to look at my reflection long enough to style it properly. I rake my fingers through my stupidly curly hair and add, “Does it matter, though? So I don’t wanna stare at some cut across my forehead. It’s nasty to look at, so I—” “There shouldn’t be a cut across your forehead in the first place,” Dad interrupts. “Your classmates shouldn’t be hitting you. They shouldn’t be shoving you around. They shouldn’t be taunting you, or ruining your belongings, or treating you like you’re nothing, just because you’ve had a hard year. I didn’t realize how bad things were for you at this school, but now that I know, I can’t ignore it anymore. I think some distance from Lakewood might be good for you.” He says distance from Lakewood, I hear distance from all the mistakes I made here. I hear distance from the people who hate me, and distance from the people who should hate me, and distance from the parts of me that I hate enough to make up for everyone else. Distance from Travis. “Can I think about it for a little while?” I ask, standing up and scraping the remainders of my dinner into the garbage disposal. “I think I should maybe—I don’t know. Maybe I’ll talk to Jamie about it, see if he thinks it’s a good idea? He knows me. He knows Patton. And right now, I don’t feel like I know anything. So I just—I need some time, I think. Please.” Dad gives me a vague smile and says, “Of course. Headmaster Samuels told me that, so long as we made a decision by the last week of December, you could take your time coming to whatever conclusion you think would be best for you.” There aren’t any other words I think I can force out right now without him figuring out the real reason I can’t agree to go just yet. I return his tense smile and head for the stairs. Halfway back to my room, I pull out my cell phone and type out two texts. The first is to Jamie and reads, can’t wait to see you this weekend. i have something important i need to talk to you about. I send it. The second is to Travis; if i left lhs after this semester and moved back to new york to go to pma for the rest of senior year, do you think you would ever maybe miss me? But it’s too big of a question to ask. The idea of putting that sort of pressure on him, of making him feel like I’m yet another person who’s putting their future in his hands… it’s too much to deal with. I jump to the beginning of the text and start to erase the words one by one. Like a complete moron, I’ve miscounted the steps it takes to get me to the basement, and I trip off the last stair. And because apparently Alex is wrong and there is a God, and because apparently Ben is wrong too, and He doesn’t love everyone, my mad scramble not to drop my phone as I’m stumbling all over my own feet ends with me accidentally hitting send. I watch as a tiny check mark appears on the screen, alerting me to the fact that Travis has indeed received a text that reads miss me? I’ve got half a mind to start banging my head against the wall until I give myself a fourth—and hopefully fatal—concussion, but just as I’ve psyched myself up to send my still-injured forehead right towards the edge of my bedroom door, my phone chimes. His reply simply reads, Always.

58 days sober

Travis’ eighteenth birthday sort of sneaks up on me after that. I’ve barely had a minute to think about it between the extra rehearsals for Grease, the unbearable tension that permeates said rehearsals, debating whether or not I should go back to Patton in the spring, and Nate’s constant insistence on spending every single lunch period quizzing me about the details of what I plan to wear to his dance next week. “I told you, dude. It’s a suit,” I say, massaging my temples in an attempt to ward off the headache I’m rapidly developing. “Am I supposed to be saying this in some language other than English? Un costume. El traje. Der Anzug. L—” “Yes, I understand that it’s a suit,” Nate says, drumming his fingers on the lunch table. Good. I’m glad he’s as annoyed by this conversation as I am. “But what kind of suit? What’s the cut like? What color—” “The cut is like whatever my best friend picked out when he talked me into buying this fucking thing a year ago. And what color do you think it is? It’s black. Black jacket, black pants, black shirt, black everything because in case you haven’t noticed, I barely wear any other colors.” I snatch a plastic knife off Riley’s lunch tray and hand it to Joss, saying, “I can’t take this conversation anymore. I want somebody to cut my throat right now, and you’re the only person I trust to really do it.” Joss lights up and makes a grab for the knife, but without missing a beat, Annabelle passes it back to Riley and leans around me to address Travis with an abrupt change of subject. “Are you excited for this weekend? Only two days left until the big day.” “What big day?” I ask, nudging his elbow when he ignores me in favor of continuing to underline a passage on his AP Spanish handout. When he finally does glance up long enough to give me an unimpressed look, I suddenly realize, fuck. “Your birthday’s this Saturday. That’s right.” “I’m offended that you’re only just now remembering,” he says without much feeling. Pointing out that I’ve had to force myself to forget about it because I already spend too much time thinking about him—obsessing over him, as Ben has so graciously taken to calling it when Travis isn’t around—would probably not go over well, particularly given that he’s sitting across from the girlfriend I’m still not sure he’s actually spoken to since Monday. I settle for, “You still haven’t told me what you want as a present, you know.” He shrugs without comment. “What was the best present you got last year?” John asks. “My first blowjob,” Travis says absently, still not looking up from his homework. Across the table, Joss reels back as if he’d punched her; he doesn’t seem to notice. I duck my head to try to hide my smile, but… I mean, it’s a really big fucking smile. “So, how are you celebrating this year?” Miranda asks, hastily trying to steer the conversation away from a place that will infuriate Josslyn. Travis shrugs again. “During my break while I’m at work that morning, I’m heading to town hall to submit my voter registration forms.” “That’s the most tragically lame celebration of adulthood I’ve ever heard of,” I declare. “There are so many more exciting things you can do when you turn eighteen, and you’re wasting a perfectly good birthday.” “How did you celebrate yours?” he asks. “Moped around Jamie’s dorm room at Patton, drank half a dozen Jagerbombs for lunch, and jerked off thinking about that thing you do with your—” “Please don’t finish that sentence,” Joss says tightly. I raise my hands in surrender, but say to Travis, “You should go out and… I don’t know. Buy cigarettes. Go clubbing. Star in porn. Get tattoos. And yes, register to vote, whatever. But do the exciting shit first.” “I don’t smoke, I don’t know any good clubs, I blush too much to ever star in porn, and I already got a tattoo after my last birthday. So I think I’m mostly going to focus on the—” “Seriously, are you ever going to show us this tattoo?” Christine says, raising her eyebrows. Instead of speaking, Travis sets down his pen and stretches his forearm out across the table, baring the small letter G on his wrist. I had opted to get mine on my right wrist, and he had chosen his left. I can only assume it’s because I’m right-handed and he’s left-handed, but part of me had always secretly loved the way they lined up when we held hands. Several people at the table try to gape at him, but he’s still focused on his homework, so their stares turn to me next. I say solemnly, “He was so fucking upset that they started inking him up before they bothered to tell him that the word ‘ghostbusters’ was too long to go around his wrist. Like, he cried. It was really embarrassing.” My hands are folded in my lap right now, but Nate reaches over and draws them up above the table, presumably to check that I have a matching T. Annabelle snorts. “Yeah? ‘Ghostbusters’? So, what’s yours for?” “‘Tasty,’” Travis and I say in unison. It’s the same bullshit response I’d given him last fall, when he first freaked out about it, but I find myself looking around at him in surprise. I hadn’t expected him to remember. He’s not looking at me, but he is smirking. It’s that smirk that makes me say, without giving myself time to really think about it, “You say you don’t know any good clubs, but, um… I mean, I do. Some places down in New Haven. And New York. A few in Rhode Island. I could take you out for the night.” He blinks up at me, and I bite down hard on my lip ring. His gaze flickers down briefly to follow the movement, then focuses in on my eyes again. Finally he says, “Yeah?” “Yeah,” I echo, shrugging. “We could—I mean, eighteen is a big deal. And Stohler had wanted to take me out to celebrate anyway. We’d been planning to go to this one club she goes to a lot, with Ben, Alex, and Jamie. You should come. This place—well, they don’t card people who are buying alcohol, so you could drink, if you wanted to. And I’ll be sober, so I could drive you home after, like Halloween. It’d be fun.” “If I did drink,” Travis says very carefully, “I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to go home afterward. My mom still hasn’t—I mean, things are still weird around the house. She’d lose it if I came home late and she knew I’d been drinking.” I pick at the label on my Snapple bottle and steady my voice as I say, “You could crash at my house after. That’s what Jamie’s going to do. My dad wouldn’t mind, and I have a couch in my room.” He raises his eyebrows ever so slightly, but thankfully doesn’t point out that he’s been in my bedroom before, and has therefore already been made aware of the couch. “I could sleep on that, and you could—” sleep in my bed. I think Joss might punch me in the face if I actually say those words. “You could stay over, if you didn’t want to go home after.” “Okay, um—” He pauses, finally chancing a glance at his girlfriend, who is purposefully shredding her lasagna with her fork. I want to do something dumb and mean, like tell her that pasta sauce is supposed to be really bad for fetuses, but I don’t even know if that’s something people say. I remain silent and watch as Travis very obviously weighs the pros and cons of asking his girlfriend’s permission to go out, get drunk, and spend his birthday in his ex-boyfriend’s bed. After a moment, he swallows hard, turns to me with a smile, and says, “Yeah, alright. We’ll go out.” “Cool,” I say, like the world’s most loser-ish assclown. “I’ll, um, text you Saturday night to let you know when I’ll be picking you up, and we’ll go to New Haven, grab Stohler, go from there.” He nods, then cocks his head to the side. “What did she want to celebrate, anyway?” I almost bite my lip ring again to hold back the grin, but if he looks at my mouth again, I’m going to lose my mind. So instead, I flash him a brief smile and say, “As of this weekend, I’m sixty days sober.” “Dude,” Riley says, plucking off his baseball cap to check that the brim is sufficiently curved. “You should have told us. I would have made Nate bake you a cake or something.” “You would have done no such thing,” Nate says, affronted. To me, he adds, “Not that I wouldn’t bake you a cake. I just don’t take orders from Riley.” “It’s fine, I don’t need a cake,” I say. Under the table, I slip my phone from my pocket and send a mass text to Stohler, Ben, Alex, and Jamie: travis turns 18 this saturday, invited him to come to club with us. we planned on b’s car, but now either a) i call shotgun & the rest of you fuckers can enjoy stuffing 4 people into the backseat or b) I need to borrow my dad’s benz & bring 1 of you guys with me so i don’t end up parked in an alley & fingerbanging a drunk birthday boy. 1st person to make fun of me for this is gonna get bitch-slapped. It only takes a minute for Ben to reply, in a group text so that everyone can see, A bitch slap? Sounds fantastic. Add in a little hair-pulling and you’ve got yourself a deal. Seriously though, you’re a fucking idiot sometimes. Inviting the ex you’re still in love with along to a club to celebrate his birthday, what the fuck. eat a dick, mccutcheon, he’s your ex, too, I type back furiously. Yes, but I’m actually over him. Unlike you. How did this seem like a good idea?it’s like a riddle, i’m trying to see how many of my previous sexual partners i can get into a single room, I type. speaking of, anybody know dave walczyk’s number? i’m having a hard time remembering it, it’s like somebody beat me until i got a concussion, slipped into a coma, and forgot it. That’s enough to finally spur a response from Jamie. Not funny, asshole. I’ve got nothing against Freckles, so if you want him to come along, it’s fine by me. But when you guys end up fucking in a bathroom stall and you get all sad about it afterward, please realize that the rest of us will be too busy saying ‘we told you so’ to listen to you whine. i hate you, i’m not going to hook up with him. i can behave myself for one night, I text back, scowling.Can you, though? Jamie responds at the same time as Ben says, Actually, you really can’t. Then, from Stohler, For fuck’s sake, I am trying to sleep. If I get another text from any of you homos, the unholy hellfire that I unleash upon you all will be something straight out of a Southern Baptist Sunday school. text text text, I reply instantly. bitch, it is noon. get the fuck up. SOME OF US PASSED TWELFTH GRADE THE FIRST TIME WE TRIED IT, GAREN, SO SOME OF US WORK UNTIL FIVE IN THE MORNING AND THEN JUST WANT TO SLEEP DURING THE DAY, ALRIGHT? Work until five in the morning. Because—oh god, this is either the best idea I’ve ever had in my life, or the worst. Fingers practically cramping up in my haste to type out, I send her a message saying, stohler, dude, if i wanted to hire you and possibly someone else—a dude type of someone else—to jump out of a cake and give the birthday boy a lapdance in an obscenely public setting tomorrow, how much would that cost? $250 each, and if I get arrested for public indecency, you have to post my bail. Call me tonight, we’ll work something out. But TONIGHT as in NOT NOW, when I want to be SLEEPING. Jamie responds, You know, I kind of need y’all to let me concentrate on homework instead of forcing me to watch a text argument between a recovering drug addict and an exotic dancer. That’s why I have cable, not why my parents pay for me to attend an Ivy League university. Seconded, other than the fact that I’m not a spoiled little rich boy, so I pay for my own Ivy League tuition, Ben sends. I’m sorry, McCutcheon, what was that? It’s hard for me to see the screen on my phone properly because of the intense glare coming off every surface in my solid gold apartment building… Are you sure you didn’t just lose your phone in the gigantic pile of hundred dollar bills I assume you spend every waking moment rolling around naked in? Don’t be silly. Only poor people bother touching paper money, it’s unsanitary. And rolling around naked on my black AmEx just isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. Sighing, I type, if your class warfare is actually rooted in sexual insecurities, i can save us all a lot of trouble & just tell you which one of you is better in bed. Fine by me, Ben says at almost the exact moment that James responds, Go for it. I’m halfway through typing, jamie’s dick is bigger & he gives better head, but ben’s kinkiness is hot as fuck & his enthusiastic participation make him more fun to top, when Stohler sends a furious, capslock-y, ONE MORE FUCKING TEXT, BOYS. SEND ME ONE MORE TEXT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS. I hastily backspace my text and stuff my phone back into my pocket. Only when I’m leaving the cafeteria does my phone buzz again. I look down. It’s the first reply from Alex, and it’s a picture. More precisely, it’s a screencap of the display on his phone, alerting him to twenty-three new text messages. He has captioned it, …seriously u guys?59 days sober

My plan to douse Travis in a healthy serving of birthday humiliation goes even better than planned, primarily because he’s too trusting for his own good. Tricking him into receiving a public lapdance really shouldn’t be as easy as waiting until Nate and Ms. Markland have left the room to argue (again) and saying, “Hey, McCall, can you do me a favor and sit down in this chair right here, in the middle of the stage, just for a second?” It should be a lot harder than that; it should take at least some degree of subterfuge. It’s not, and it doesn’t. “What’s up?” he says, edging between Annabelle and Geoffrey to join me on stage. He’s still wearing that dorky, adorable headset he has to wear to remain in contact with the sound booth and Riley… who actually knows what I’m planning, and might be warning him right now, that sneaky, traitorous little fucker. I tug the headset off him and sling it around my own neck. “I want to give you your birthday present.” His brow furrows. “You know you’re seeing me tomorrow, on my actual birthday, right? You could just wait until then.” “No, I really can’t. Sit,” I order, pointing to the chair. He sits. This is so easy, I’m actually a little embarrassed for him already. “Do you remember what I said I was going to get you for your birthday last year?” “An iPod,” he says, head cocked to the side. There’s a beat, then he adds, “And a life.” “And?” I prompt. His face is utterly blank for a moment, and then he looks terrified. His eyes dart from his chair, to me, to the fucking fire exits, like setting off the alarms and getting bitched out by the fire department might be worth it if he gets to flee before I have a chance to force this plan on him. Before he can, I dart over to the mic stand on the edge of the stage and say, so that my voice will be audible from the sound booth, “Hey, Ry. Wanna help me out with this one?”

A grating, electronic beat starts to squeak out of the speakers. Taking the cue from the music, the doors to the auditorium swing open, and two four-foot-tall, tiered cakes make their way into the room, each carried by four men in black Hot Mess t-shirts. The closer the cakes get to the stage, the redder Travis’ face gets. There’s a strong possibility that he might be close to following up on that threat of suicide, but no matter how embarrassed he seems, he also looks like he’s trying not to laugh, so I think I’m mostly safe. The cakes are hoisted up onto the stage and positioned right next to each other, less than five feet away from Travis, who can’t stop himself from staring back and forth between them.

“There are two. Oh god, why are there two?” he asks. “I’m sorry, did I promise you ‘stripper,’ or did I promise you ‘strippers’?” I demand. “Besides, on any given day, I never know if you’re going to prefer chick or dick, so I figured I should hedge my bets and get one of each.” There’s an explosion of dubstep from the sound system, and the top level of each cake bursts open. Travis’ gaze immediately latches onto the stage, the ceiling, anything but Stohler in her glittery pink bikini coming out of the cake on the right, or the dark-haired twink in the skintight gold shorts in the cake on the left. Each of them is lifted from the wreckage of the cakes by a pair of Hot Mess assistants, and then they’re both writhing and grinding and inching closer to Travis, who continues to stare at the ceiling, red-faced, as he mutters, “Oh my god.” And that just won’t do. I move to stand behind Travis’ chair, reaching around to catch his jaw in my palms so that I can direct his attention to the two flawless, nearly naked bodies in front of him. “Pay attention to your present, T.” “You got me strippers,” he says faintly. “You brought strippers to my high school.” “I brought strippers to your high school,” I agree, because, well, yes, I did. Now that I’m sure he’s watching, it’s my intention to step away—maybe in a second, right after I sneak a quick brush of my thumbs over his burning hot cheekbones—but the second I start to move back, his hand darts up to catch my wrist, anchoring me in place. I swallow and chance a glance over my shoulder at the rest of the drama club. Unsurprisingly, the focus is not on me—it’s on Stohler and the boy, both of whom have finally made their way to stand directly in front of Travis. The music is still pulsing out of the speakers, and the dancers are swaying and undulating. Even as someone who isn’t into women, I can tell that Stohler is incredibly sexy, and as someone who’s definitely into men, I know that the twink is hot. I also know that he’s exactly Travis’ type—dark hair, nice eyes, pale skin, a sort of hard-ass rock-and-roll edge to him. And if that means that my eighteenth birthday present to my ex-boyfriend is a stripper who looks like me, then I guess I’m just not as subtle with my come-ons as a better man might be. Catching sight of Josslyn at the edge of the stage, Stohler’s eyes spark up with something a little bit dangerous, and one of her long legs suddenly shoots up so that Travis’ shoulder is pinned beneath her five-inch stiletto. She tosses her hair, swings her hips, runs her hands across her taut body, totally milking it just for the sake of getting back at the bitch who dared to make her feel bad about having this as a job. “Nice to see you again, Stohler,” Travis says, more than a little lamely. I throw my head back and laugh, finally dropping my hands from his face and stepping away to appreciate the show. Clearly not content to be outperformed, the twink is straddling Travis’ thigh and doing the sort of dance that could probably get someone arrested in a town this conservative. And while Travis seems determined to prove his respect for Stohler by not looking at any part of her body below the neck, he’s incapable of going above the shoulders on the dude. I watch as his eyes rake over the man’s body in a way that’s maybe a little bit desperate, and it occurs to me—why do I only ever realize these sort of things too late?—that this is the first time since April that he’s seen another guy’s undressed body and felt like it was okay to stare. Oh, Christ. This was supposed to be an embarrassing joke, not some weird, existential crisis about the bisexuality his girlfriend attempts to force him to repress. Thankfully, the song is drawing to a close, which means the pair of dancers are stepping back and gesturing to their torsos in a way that is clearly meant to draw his attention to the message that has been painted across skin in electric blue icing pens that are probably meant for decorating cookies, not people. The word happy is swirled across the twink’s pecs—and I’m sure this little faggot’s already taken at least one over-saturated cell phone picture of it for his Instagram account— and Stohler has birthday written across her cleavage. She grabs my wrist and tows me to her other side, hooking a finger under the hem of my t-shirt and dragging it up just high enough to expose the last part of the message; Travis’ name written across my abs in frosting pen. Because his eyes seem a little unfocused, and he’s sorta looking like he might need some help with this one, I read the message aloud. “Happy birthday, Travis.” “I can’t believe you did this,” Travis says, staring at his name on my skin. I smirk. “I know, I’m a terrible fucking person.” I jerk my head towards Stohler and the twink. “But hey, the ‘happy birthday’ note is totally edible. It’s written in some cake-decorating pen, so if you’re in the mood for a birthday treat, I’m sure one of your presents over there would be more than happy to let you—” And then, before I can prepare myself for the movement, Travis is on his knees in front of me with his eyes still locked on mine, yanking my shirt higher up towards my collarbone, swiping the flat of his tongue across the letters, leaving nothing but a smear of blue across my skin. I’m going to fucking pass out. He straightens up and pecks a kiss to my cheek, leaning in just enough to murmur, “Happy birthday to me,” before he turns and heads backstage. “Not fair!” I say, unable to look at anything but the streak of frosting and spit where his tongue just touched me. “That was—you’re a fucking tease, you know that?” He just laughs.

60 days sober

“He wants you to go back to Patton?” “Yeah.” “And you’re just considering it?” “Yeah.” “He wants you to go back to Patton, the school of your dreams, the school where we met, the school where you had some of the best experiences of your life, the school that you were so upset about leaving that you put your fist through a window in protest, and you’re just considering it?” “Yeah,” I say yet again. The car comes to a stop-ish at an intersection, but this is fucking Lakewood, and there are no other cars and no cops, so I mostly just roll through it. I keep the speed low enough that I can turn to see what look Jamie is giving me from the passenger seat. His eyebrows are raised, but that’s not enough of an answer. I say, somewhat uncertainly, “So, you think I should go?” He mulls it over for a bit, lights a new cigarette—even though this is my dad’s car and we’re both going to get bitched at for it later—and eventually decides, “No. I don’t think you should go.” I manage to shoot him one bewildered glance before I have to focus on the road again. “What, seriously? You just said it—” “G, I’d like nothing more than to pretend that you liked Patton because it imbued you with a sense of dignity, responsibility, and faith in the great American tradition of fine military academies. It was a great school, and we got a great education, and we’re probably better men for having gone there. But you and I both know that we loved Patton because it was fun.” “And do you suddenly have something against fun?” I ask. “Against you having the sort of fun we had at Patton? Absolutely,” he says. He pauses, frowns at the door. “How the hell do you roll down the window in this thing?” “You press the—oh, hang on,” I say, flicking the switch on my own door. He tries the button again, and the window goes down this time. I shrug. “Dad likes to keep the passenger side window locked because sometimes when he’s driving me somewhere, I get bored and try to talk to strangers at stoplights.” Jamie snorts. “That’s embarrassing for you.” “Most of the things I do should be embarrassing for me,” I agree. “Anyway. Patton…?” “Right,” he says. “Look, you… we go out, yeah? We go to clubs, and bars, and it’s okay, because I’m there for you, and I—” He breaks off, taking a contemplative drag from his cigarette and clearly trying to decide how best to phrase his thoughts without offending me. I shoot him a wry smile and make a vague gesture towards my mouth. He reaches over with the cigarette so I can take a drag off of it as well, and I say, “You protect me, is what you’re trying to say. Or, trying not to say.” “Pretty much. And we know people who are still at school there, so you wouldn’t be alone, but—” “—but there’s no one there who you trust to keep me sober,” I finish. “I trust you to keep you sober,” he points out, “but it’s still not the best environment for someone who’s trying to stay sober. The only class you and I could ever be counted on to attend completely sober was PT, and that was more out of necessity than a desire to give a fuck about it. Think of all the booze we drank at Patton. Think of all the drugs we did. That’s a lot of temptation, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea, not during your first year of being clean. Patton was… it was home for us, and it was safe, but it was safe when it didn’t have to be safe. I think there’s a chance that you need more security than that right now. But it’s up to you, alright?” I nod, and turn into the driveway, nodding to my phone. “Text Travis and tell him we’re here to get him.” “No need. I’ll get him!” Jamie says brightly, flinging open his door and bounding up to the front door before I can object. He jabs the doorbell a few times, bouncing impatiently while he waits. Finally, the door swings open, and Evelyn blinks at him in thinly veiled horror. He beams at her, and even from here, I can hear how much he’s exaggerating his accent as he practically yells, “Hello, Mrs. McCall! Remember me? Garen’s friend? You know, that Garen?” He flings a hand in my direction, and Evelyn leans around him to look at me. I smile so wide it hurts my cheeks, then flash her a double thumbs-up. Travis edges around his mom and says, “Uh. So, yeah, I’m going out tonight. For my birthday. With friends.” “Friends,” Jamie agrees warmly, slinging an arm around Travis’ shoulders. “Friends!” I have to shout to be heard, since I’m a bit further away. Travis looks like he can’t decide whether he wants to stab us or hug us. He says, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” “Where are you going?” Evelyn asks, and for a moment, Travis looks stunned that she has actually bothered to speak to him, for the first time in months. And then he realizes, at the same moment I do, that her eyes are focused on Jamie, not him. She’s fucking talking to a kid who’s almost a complete stranger, rather than her own son. Rage flares up within me, and even though I’m the farthest away, I’m the one who answers her question. I scroll frantically through my iPod for the song I want, crank the stereo up as high as it’ll go, and let loose a scream of guitars, and then--

“You! I wanna take you to a gay bar! I wanna take you to a gay bar! I wanna take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar!”

“We should go,” I think Travis is saying to Jamie, who is grinning like a madman. I can barely hear him speaking over the music, and then Travis is dragging my best friend off the porch and towards the car. Jamie shoves him into the front seat and takes the backseat for himself. Evelyn continues to glower at us from the front steps. “I’ve got something to put in you!” the singer is screeching from the stereo. I make a few enthusiastic thrusting movements, then point to Travis, nodding to Evelyn and biting down on my lip in the most lecherous way possible. She goes back inside, and Travis smacks me hard on the back of the head. “That is my mother, what is wrong with you?” he says. Having lost my audience, I pull out of the driveway and set the course for New Haven to meet the others. “Whatever, your mom’s a cunt. She deserves it.” He doesn’t object, though he does say, apropos of absolutely nothing, “Join the military.” I blink over at him. “Is—was that like, an order? Like, I humped the air in front of your mom, so you want me to go join the military? Because we both know I have major issues with authority figures. I barely made it through three years of military school without getting expelled.” “No,” he says, laughing. “I just realized you left that off your list at lunch the other day. You know, of things I can do now that I’m eighteen? I can join the military.” My hands clench into fists around the steering wheel. “Please don’t. It’s bad enough that I’m going to have to face that reality with that idiot in the backseat in a few years, I don’t want to face it with you, too.” Travis turns to stare at me. “James is joining the military?” “Yes,” I say tightly. In the mirror, I can see Jamie shrug. “I’m a Political Science major at Columbia right now. Then, I’m going to law school, taking the bar, becoming a licensed attorney, whatever. After that, it’s the Marines and the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island. I want to be a Judge Advocate. Garen disapproves.” “Garen doesn’t disapprove,” I say through gritted teeth. “Garen just doesn’t understand why his best friend needs to follow a career path that might ever, under any circumstances, involve getting shot at.” “G, I’m not going to get shot!” Jamie argues. “Besides, if you didn’t want a best friend who planned to join the military, maybe you shouldn’t have met your best friend at military school. Speaking of—” He stops speaking abruptly when I catch his eye in the mirror and give a sharp shake of my head. The Patton conversation is so not one I’m prepared to have with Travis yet. Thankfully, Jamie realizes what I’m communicating, because he says, “Anyway, happy birthday, Travis. Are you excited that Garen decided to take your gay bar virginity tonight?” “Well, if anybody has to, it’s only fitting that it’d be Garen,” Travis says, and I smirk at him. They spend most of the ride like that, shooting the shit about random things, until we get to New Haven and I get… lost, actually. Or, I know where I am, but not where I can find the lot that Stohler, Ben, and Alex are parked in. Eventually, I ask Travis to just call them so I can get directions, which turns out to be a hell of a process and involves a lot of Travis snapping, “Turn right at which light? This isn’t fucking Lakewood, they’ve got more than one!” “Is that McCutcheon on the phone?” Jamie demands, leaning forward in his seat. Travis nods, and he leans even closer to say, loudly enough for Ben to hear, “Why the fuck are you driving, little one? Can you even see over the steering wheel?” Travis twists around in his seat and mouths, barely, which sets Jamie off in a fit of laughter, though Travis quickly schools his expression into neutrality, like he thinks Ben will be able to tell even over the phone. He pauses, rolls his eyes, and says to Jamie, “He wants me to tell you that, if this were his car, he’d have strapped you to the roof so he didn’t have to worry about fitting your obscenely tall body into it.” Another pause, then he adds, “And so he didn’t have to listen to you talk during the drive over. Sorry, forgot that part. Wait, stop, stop, stop, this is it!” I turn into the lot he’s pointing to, and yes, Ben’s car is parked along the far side. I pay the ten dollar parking fee, then pull into the space next to them. Stohler tumbles out of the backseat in a pair of skintight jeans and heels that might look dangerous, if I hadn’t seen her do significantly more acrobatic things in higher ones. She’s holding a bottle of Jose Cuervo, which she aims at Travis as she says, in a tone that sounds a lot more accusatory than makes sense, “Happy birthday, baby gay.” “I figured Ben would be the baby gay, since he’s the smallest,” Alex says, which earns him a blinding smile from Jamie and a punch to the ribs from Ben. Stohler shakes her head and decides, “Ben’s the littlest gay. McCall’s the baby gay, because he’s the youngest. And because he’s not as much of a filthy, cock-craving whore as the rest of you… guys. All of you. You all.” “Y’all. Say it,” Jamie whispers, taking the tequila from her. “Say it, join me.” “Please don’t say it,” Ben says. “It’s bad enough listening to that abomination of a word from an actual Southerner—” “It’s a real fucking word,” Jamie says between shots. “It’s even in most dictionaries these days, because—” “It’s a goddamn colloquialism,” Ben snaps. “That’s not the same thing as—” “For the love of Christ,” Travis mutters, snatching the bottle of tequila out of Jamie’s hands and taking a pretty impressive shot. I scurry over to stand next to Ben so that I can dig an elbow into his ribs. “If you’re going to spend the whole night debating grammar with Jamie, I’m going to need to take a shot of that, too.” Stohler points at me and says, beaming, “No, sir! Because you, my friend, are sixty days sober. And I am very proud of you.” “Aww,” I say, batting my lashes at her. “You just called me your friend.” “Aaaand you just killed it,” she says flatly, scowling at me and snatching her bottle back from Travis. She pauses, frowns at it, then says, “Wait, no, that’s for you. That was my first mission for the night. Get the birthday boy blasted before we’re even in the club. Drink, drink, drink!” “My birthday present is tequila shots in a parking lot,” Travis says. “I really… did not imagine a year ago that this would be my life now.” “No, I’m pretty sure your birthday present was me jumping naked out of a cake for you yesterday,” Stohler says, and he chokes on a shot. I clap him hard on the back. Faced with a collection of baffled faces, Stohler clarifies, “It wasn’t my idea. Garen provided the money incentive and the soundtrack, I provided the pink bikini and awesome pair of tits to go in it.” “Why did you not get me half-naked Stohler for my birthday?” Alex asks me. “Because I didn’t know Stohler then. And because I got you—wait, what did I get you for your last birthday?” “Nothing, you dick, you were in rehab,” he says, and well, isn’t that awkward. Ben shrugs. “Could be worse. For my last birthday, he fled the state and didn’t speak to me for a month.” Joining in on the worst party game ever, Jamie announces, “For my last birthday, he had a mental breakdown and tried to shoot himself in the face.” “Wow, he must really hate you all,” Travis says, to which Stohler whispers y’all, “because I totally got a blowjob and an iPod for my last birthday. Not in that order, though, the blowjob came second.” Alex chuckles and echoes, “Came.” I round on Ben. “Exactly how much did they drink before you got here?” “There was another bottle, half-empty,” he says dryly, “and the one Travis is holding now was full.” I turn to see how full the bottle is now, but it’s a little hard to tell, because Stohler is yanking it out of Travis’ hand and gesturing wildly with it as she explains the finer points of body shots. He’s just frowning and saying, “Yeah, I’d definitely be up for it, but you just said we need limes. And salt. We don’t have—oh, wow. You are just… unreasonably prepared for this, aren’t you?” “I told you, this was my first mission of the night,” she says, and she is just the Susie fucking Homemaker of binge-drinking, because she reaches past me into the backseat of Ben’s car and takes out a tiny salt shaker and a tupperware container of lime wedges. I raise my eyebrows at her, and she just raises hers back, daring me to question it. And I really can’t, because I’ve done exactly the same thing before. She pops open the container and says, “It’s easy. Look, we’ll demonstrate. James, you go first. Where do you want—” “Right there,” Jamie says, pointing directly at the insane amount of cleavage she’s flaunting. “Pretty sure if I lean you back against the hood of the car a bit, it’ll form a nice little well for it.” “You’re ambitious. I like it,” Stohler says approvingly. Jamie licks a stripe up the side of her neck, and she sprinkles herself with salt, sticks a lime wedge between her teeth, and leans back against the hood of my father’s car so that Jamie can pour a shot of tequila onto her tits. “This is all happening so much more quickly than I had expected,” Travis says wildly. “Pay attention, baby gay,” Stohler orders around the lime, and he falls obediently silent. Jamie licks up the salt, spends several unnecessarily lengthy minutes sucking the booze from Stohler’s cleavage, then takes the lime from her mouth with his own. She straightens up, smiling serenely, and says, “See? Easy.” The first few shots seem to have begun to work their magic on Travis, because, much as he did at the beer pong table on Halloween, he turns uncertainly to me and asks, “Is it actually easy, or are they just practiced at this?” I shrug. “Both, probably. But it’s really not complicated, dude. You lick the salt, you suck up the shot, you bite the lime. Simple enough, right?” “Right,” he says doubtfully. I beckon Jamie closer and say, “You should take yours off Jamie. My favorite spot in the world to take body shots from was right—” Without further prompt, Jamie strips off his necktie, opens the first few buttons of his Oxford, and drags the fabric aside, hunching his shoulders just enough that his collarbone pops a little, forming a beautiful dip that I know from experience is perfect for taking a large shot from. “You do it like this,” I add, ducking down to mouth across the empty hollow of skin, as though I’m drinking from it. Jamie lets out a pleased little noise, and I nip his shoulder with my teeth before I retreat. “Or,” Jamie suggests, “you could take a shot out of the hole in McCutcheon’s heart where his love of fun should be.” “There’s a difference between not liking fun and not liking to drink,” Ben says. He pauses, rubs a hand over the back of his neck, and admits, “But if I did like to drink, I’m pretty sure I’d want Garen spread out on the backseat of his car so I could lick the tequila off his abs.” Clearly delighted, Stohler whoops and makes a grab for the hem of my t-shirt. Even Jamie looks begrudgingly approving. I grin and say, “I’m game.” “I feel like there’s something incredibly tasteless about taking a body shot off a recovering alcoholic,” Travis says warily. I narrow my eyes at him and say, “I know this may be shocking to everyone here, but I actually am an adult. I can decide for myself what I can and can’t handle, and I’m pretty sure I can handle you sucking a shot off my abs.” And if I can’t handle it, that will have very little to do with the alcohol. He hesitates, then nods, though he averts his eyes when I shrug out of my jacket and strip off my t-shirt. Christ, it’s cold out. I mean, it’s November, so that makes sense, but it’s still more than I was expecting. Since Travis seems disinclined to assist in the set-up, I gesture for Ben to come closer and say, “Everybody gets to play, and I need salt. Come on.” He rolls his eyes at me, but prompts, “Anywhere specific?” I shrug, shake my head. He smirks at me, then ducks down to drag his tongue across my left nipple, already pebbled from the cold air. I jump a little; he laughs, and I smack him, because fuck him, it’s not my fault I’ve got sensitive nipples. Stohler douses me in salt and hands me a lime wedge. I pop open the back door of the Benz and sprawl out on the backseat, leaving my legs hanging most of the way out so that my feet are still firmly on the ground. I crook my fingers, but Alex still has to give Travis a little shove to get him to come closer. “Just lean into the car, lick the salt—it’s right here, thanks a fucking lot, McCutcheon—then take the shot off—” I hold my hand out for the bottle, which Jamie passes in. I unscrew the top and pour a little onto my stomach. Much of it pools in my navel, though a lot is indeed splashed across my six-pack, and some runs off down my sides and onto the seat, which I’m sure my dad will adore. The smell is a little more overpowering than I’d expected, so I reach up to open the other back door, just to get some air. I hand the bottle back out to Stohler, trying not to move enough to spill more of the tequila. Travis’ eyes are zeroed in on my body. I lick my lips. “Like I said. Lick the salt. Take the shot. Then the lime.” I slip the wedge into my mouth, rind facing in against my tongue. “It’s—and you’re sure you’re okay with this, right?” Travis says. Even as he speaks, he inches closer and braces a knee on the seat, between my slightly parted legs. Stohler cuffs him around the back of the head and says, “It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it? Go ahead. He’s fine.” Travis ducks into the car, hovering over me, unwilling to move until I’ve answered. I nod, partially because there’s a lime in my mouth, partially because I can’t breathe enough to form words. He flattens a palm against the side of the front passenger seat to steady himself as he leans down. His tongue is warm and wet and perfect against the salt, and I try very hard to convince myself that the rest of our friends aren’t totally judging me for the fact that my eyes flutter briefly shut. I wonder if he can taste my heartbeat. Before I can even get used to that feeling, he’s sliding down to get to the tequila—he doesn’t even bother lifting his tongue, just drags the tip of it down the length of my torso, oh god. I lift my head to watch as he laps at the liquor on my stomach, cleaning it all up with lips and tongue and maybe the tiniest bit of teeth, and he is just—he is thorough. He wobbles a little and ends up steadying himself with a palm pressed high on my thigh. The lime wedge definitely falls out of my mouth at that, and I have to scramble to snatch it off my chest and put it back in my mouth with one hand, give Alex the finger with the other, because that asshole is laughing at me, because my friends are fucking terrible people. I wish I were dead. Tequila gone, he tilts his head up to give me another of those gorgeously uncertain looks, and then I’m catching his face between my hands and drawing him up to kiss—no. To take the lime. He bites into the wedge, and some of the juice runs down into my mouth. His body is flush against mine, covering my exposed chest with the fabric of his shirt, warm from his skin. He bites harder into the fruit, and when he moves, I can feel his bottom lip just barely brushing mine. I’ve never in my life wanted anything more than I want to spit the lime wedge out of the way and taste the salt on his tongue. My hands are shaking as I ease his head back and remove the rind from my mouth. “Okay. That was—good job. Yaaaay body shots, I guess.” “Get out of the car, baby gay, we’re bordering on inappropriate now,” Stohler says. “Right. Sorry,” Travis says hoarsely, scrambling back out of the car and taking the lime rind with him. Jamie raps his knuckles on the roof of the car. “You alright in there, sweetheart?” “Can you just shut the door for a minute?” I say, drawing my legs up and wriggling further into the car so that someone can grant my request. “I’ll totally join you guys inside the club, I just need to—” “Compose yourself?” Stohler suggests. “Jerk off,” I correct, and Jamie grabs my ankles and drags me to the edge of the seat. Still grinning at me, Alex drops my t-shirt and jacket in my lap. I clumsily pull them back on, then stand up and just… try to get my shit together, I guess. I check my pockets for my wallet, my cell phone, my keys, my… dignity? Nope, I’ve got no fucking clue where my dignity is. Travis probably sucked that out of my navel, too. “We heading in?” Ben asks, taking it upon himself to wander around the car, closing all the doors and making sure they’re locked. I’m glad at least one person I know is an adult. The walk from the parking lot to the club is longer than expected, but this might have something to do with the fact that Stohler’s the only one who’s been here before, and she’s hammered. Still, the lengthy walk is a good thing. It gives me time to—in her words—compose myself, and by the time we get to the front door of the club, I’m fine again. Mostly.

It’s a ten dollar cover charge. We each get our IDs checked, and the bouncer grunts out a happy birthday at Travis, who lights up. It’s kind of adorable. There’s a loud, pulsing beat from the dance floor, but Stohler leads us straight through to the coat closet so we can all check our jackets. That satisfied, she leads us next to the bar so that beers can be acquired for everyone to nurse. Ben and I each purchase a bottled water, and we’ve all been standing there for exactly four seconds when the bartender leans over the counter and says to Jamie, “Guy in the red shirt at the other end of the bar asked me to tell you he’ll pay for your drinks the rest of the night if you slip him your number.”

Jamie shoots an appraising look at the only guy in a red shirt at the other side of the bar; he’s eye-fucking Jamie like crazy, but he’s also tucked under the arm of another dude, who seems to be trying to talk to him. Jamie hitches his chin and says to the bartender, “You know if that’s his boyfriend?” The bartender nods. Jamie shoots him an apologetic, but firm smile. “Sorry, not interested in that sort of thing. And I can afford my own drinks.” The bartender moves away to relay the message and continue with his job, and Jamie turns to the nearest person—Ben—and says around a smirk, “See? Not nearly as much of an ethical egoist as you thought I’d be, huh?” Ben shrugs and says, “Actually, you always struck me as someone who’d prefer social contract theory.” Jamie goes still, frowning down at his beer. He takes a sip, then manages to force himself to grumble out, “You’ve read Rousseau?” “I have,” Ben agrees carefully. “I preferred Hobbes’ Leviathan, though.” Jamie actually chuckles. “Figures. Let me guess: you got a special sort of glee from the bit about life being ‘solitary, poor, nasty--’” “‘--brutish and short,’” Ben finishes, smiling wryly down at his water bottle. “Yes, well, he paints quite the picture, doesn’t he?” Jamie snorts. And it’s delightful to see them actually managing to maintain some sense of civility towards each other, but it’s also boring as shit, on account of how they’re discussing political philosophy in the middle of a goddamn gay bar, those pretentious, Ivy League fuckers. I roll my eyes and turn to Stohler instead. She jerks her head towards an area on the opposite end of the club and says, “There’s a space against that wall where they have some couches and chairs and shit, if you guys wanna sit.” I relay this information to the rest of the group, and she leads us along. The sitting area is much smaller than anticipated. There are six of us and only five seats, but Travis, who is the last man standing, simply shrugs and flings himself down onto my lap. It takes essentially all of my self control to act like it’s not a big deal, when what I really want to do is throw my arms around him and bury my face in the back of his neck and breathe him in. But, I mean. That’d be weird. So. I don’t.“This is probably not your best idea,” I admit to him. He shoots me a questioning glance, and I say, “Look, if you sit on my lap, odds are really good that you’re going to get touched. That’s not—you know, don’t take it to heart. That’s true of pretty much everyone I’ve slept with. You’re not special, don’t think you’re special. I just don’t think people I’ve banged should expect me to keep my hands to myself, if they’re going to be on top of me.”

“You realize that means nobody’s left, right?” Jamie says. “Except Stohler. But of the boys in this group, ‘people you’ve slept with’ kind of includes everyone.” “Like you can even judge me for that,” I grumble. He’s actually drunk enough to look offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means you bang all your friends, too! Like, seriously, Jamie, tell me how my dick tastes, and then we’ll talk,” I say. Travis paws at my chest and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously similar to, I bet it tastes delicious. I blink at him. “Wait, what?” “Nothing,” he says, widening his eyes at me and then turning to attempt to engage Ben in conversation, but Ben is busy choking on a mouthful of water, trying not to literally die laughing, so I’m pretty sure my guess was close enough. Unsatisfied with a choking midget as a conversational partner, Travis turns to Alex, who is busy chattering away at a total stranger, then turns again to face Stohler. I say, through gritted teeth, “Travis, I’m glad you’re doing your best to be a social butterfly or whatever, but if you’re going to sit on my lap, you’re going to need to sit the fuck still. Your girlfriend would really not appreciate the friction issues I’m experiencing right now.” Travis glances over his shoulder at me and gives a very deliberate grinding twist downward. I dig my fingers into his hips. “Oh my god, you are such a fucking slutty drunk. How have you made it eighteen years without anyone ever just beating the shit out of you?” “I haven’t. I’ve gotten my ass kicked like, four times,” he protests. “It’s about to be five, if you don’t—” “Yes, G, call him a slut and threaten to punish him. That’s absolutely the solution,” Stohler says. Ben shrugs. “He does that to me all the time, and our friendship has never been better.” I wink at him, and Stohler rolls her eyes. She reaches out and hooks an arm around Travis’ waist, pulling him off my lap and onto hers. “Come on, birthday boy. Your Garen privileges are being revoked for the time being.”

Some godawful, ear-raping song starts up on the sound system. Jamie perks up. Forgetting whatever offense he’d taken at my earlier comment, he grabs my wrist and hauls me to my feet. “I love this song. Come dance with me, G. It’s been far too long since I’ve been pressed up against you in all the worst ways.”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure we fucked like, three weeks ago,” I say. “I know. Almost a month, I can barely stand it,” he says, squeezing my hand. I laugh and let him tow me out to the dance floor. He ends up pressed against my back, grinding his semi against my ass, the fingers of both his hands tangled with mine, his mouth brushing against my temple. It’s the way we always dance together, and it’s probably why most strangers we meet in clubs end up assuming that he tops, but the truth is that it’s just easier this way, given the slight but not unnoticeable height difference between us. We just never seem to dance face-to-face, and if I were behind him, we could never get at the right angle to kiss. As if reading my thoughts, Jamie releases one of my hands—I move it immediately backward to grip his hip—so that he can cup my jaw and turn my face to bring our mouths together over my shoulder. It’s a pity that both he and Travis are sleeping over tonight, because if it were just Jamie, I’d definitely be getting laid. Or, maybe it’s a pity that they’re both sleeping over because I’m pretty sure Travis would shoot down any suggestions I might make regarding a threesome. The kissing stops when we’re eventually joined by the others. Stohler nudges me and says, “Alex made us come after you. He was getting jealous.” Jamie snorts and says flatly, “He wasn’t getting jealous.” “I was getting jealous,” Alex admits, almost too quietly for me to hear him over the music. Jamie’s brow furrows, like he just doesn’t get it, but I step out of the way and let Alex shift closer to him, looping an arm around his waist and drawing him in. The rest of the night continues much like that, all of us dancing together in pairs and trios and various combinations of all sorts. The smokers in the group take a few breaks to head outside, the drinkers in the group take a few breaks to head back to the bar, and every time Travis gets too close to me, even if it’s just by mistake, I panic and find some excuse to shift away from him. It’s not that I don’t want to touch him; it’s just that I don’t trust myself to know how to stop. Alex and Ben are outside or over by the bar or somewhere when the shit sort of starts to hit the fan. It’s late now, and Jamie knocks his shoulder against mine and makes a gesture like he’s smoking a cigarette before jerking his head towards the door to the smoking area, which Stohler is already making her way towards. I nod once and move to follow him, but my progress is halted by Travis’ hand on the back of my neck, steering my attention back towards him and pulling me closer. Mouth almost touching my ear, he says, “Stay. Dance with me.”

This is dangerous, and the expression on Jamie’s face tells me he thinks so, too. But Travis’ hand is so warm against my skin, and his other hand is brushing over my waist, gliding around to settle in the small of my back. I shoot Jamie my best can you just shut the fuck up and go have your cigarette and have another boring philosophy debate with Ben so I can make this mistake in privacy? look and say, “Yeah. I’ll, uh… I’ll stay.”

“Good,” he says, all slightly-inebriated confidence and satisfaction. His hips are slotted against mine, and I wind an arm around his shoulders, knotting my other hand in the front of his shirt, just so I’m sure he’s all there. His face is much too close for comfort, and I know that if I don’t remedy this situation immediately, I’ll be kissing him before the chorus of the song is over. The only solution I can think of is to pull him close enough that my mouth is next to his cheek instead, safely out of kissing distance. Travis isn’t a great dancer—fucking finally, something this kid isn’t amazing at—but he is a good partner. He takes his cues from the movement of my body, and it’s not long at all before we’re moving against each other in a seamless grinding of hips. One of his legs is wedged between mine, and I’d be lying if I tried to even pretend I wasn’t just blatantly rutting up against his thigh in time to the music, but he either doesn’t notice that I’m getting hard, or doesn’t care. The hand that had been on my back has been moving progressively lower over the course of the song, and by now, his fingertips are in my back pocket. The teasing touches are hot as hell, but I sort of wish he’d just grab my ass already so that I’d have license to return the gesture, which I’m dying to do. The hand at the base of my neck glides across my shoulder, down my chest, circles my body to join the other on my back. The motion anchors me to him, and I don’t care if that wasn’t a green light, because that’s how I’m electing to take it. I duck to press my lips to the edge of his jaw, and when he doesn’t resist, I go for it, leaning in and mouthing down the column of his throat, sucking hard at the join of neck and shoulder. He lets out a sound that might be a curse, but I keep marking him—I don’t even care what his girlfriend will say the next time she sees him and notices a hickey under the edge of his shirt collar—and he finally lets his hands drop to cup my ass through my jeans, gripping me firmly and pulling me against him so roughly that the only way I could be any closer would be if I were inside of him, fuck. “We should stop,” Travis breathes against my ear, and I feel the words more than I hear them. “I really only have so much self-control. And if we don’t stop doing this, this song’s going to end with me either coming in my pants or dragging you into a bathroom stall and begging you to fuck me.” I can picture it so vividly that I momentarily lose my rhythm because I’m too focused on the image in my mind—getting him turned around in a bathroom stall, his fingers curved over the top of the door so he can brace himself while I work his jeans down to his knees and fuck him from behind. It’s an easy possibility; I’m more than shameless enough to stop by the coat-check closet just long enough to get a condom and some lube from the inside pocket of my jacket, and I wouldn’t care if anyone heard us fucking in the bathroom, not if it meant getting a chance to touch him like that again. My hand moves from his shoulder to his hair, pulling just enough to guide his head back so our foreheads are touching and I can feel his breath on my lips, which are almost brushing his as I say, voice heavy with wanting, “I would. I want to, let’s go.” “I have a girlfriend,” he says pleadingly. “Fuck, Garen, I want you so badly, you have no idea—” I have some idea, considering the way he’s pressed up against me, dick rock hard against my thigh, “—but I can’t do that. I have a girlfriend, and I don’t want to be that guy.” “You don’t love her,” I say. “You don’t even like her, not really, not anymore. It’s okay, Trav, I don’t care that you’re not single, alright? I want you anyway. Let me take care of you, I can make it so fucking good for you, I swear.” I unclench the fist that’s been wound into the front of his shirt, drag it down the length of his chest, press my palm to his hard cock through his jeans. He bucks against my hand instinctively, and his sudden shift bumps his lips against my chin. I’m moving in to seal our mouths together properly when a firm, familiar hand lands on my back. “G. Not a good idea,” Jamie says into my ear. “I want,” is all I manage to force out. But then there’s another person’s hand on my wrist, and I look down to see that Ben is guiding my hand away from Travis’ crotch and wedging himself between us. He rocks up onto his toes to say something into Travis’ ear, and Travis’ eyes are still fixed on my mouth, still dark with desire even in the dim light of the club. He’s clearly not listening to a word Ben is saying, and after a moment, the shorter man reaches up to grab his jaw, turning his head roughly so that their eyes lock. He repeats whatever he just said, and there’s a hesitation, then a nod. Ben turns to Jamie and I and says, “We’re going out to the smoking area to get some air. You coming?” “I want,” I repeat, still staring at Travis. Jamie cuffs me hard around the head and says, “Yes, we’re coming.” “I could be, if you two weren’t such a gigantic pair of cockblocks,” I grumble, but I don’t think anyone can hear me over the music. I let Jamie push me in the direction of the smoking area, out of the club and into the cool November air. Alex is chatting to Stohler while she smokes a cigarette, so we end up joining them. Despite the fact that they headed for the door before us, Ben and Travis are nowhere to be found. They appear a few minutes later, and Ben’s holding a water bottle, so I guess they stopped at the bar before coming out. He hands it to Travis, who takes a long sip, then pours some onto his hand and lets his head roll forward so he can brush a cold and dripping hand across the back of his own neck. I make a somewhat embarrassing noise at that, and Jamie smacks me again, then turns me around to face the side of the building, like he’s putting me in time-out. My words are playing on repeat inside my skull, over and over. I want, I want, I want. “What do you need, G?” Jamie asks. “I need—” That’s as far as I can get. I’m pretty sure Travis has officially broken my brain with how hot he gets me. I didn’t even know that was possible. I want. I need. “I need to touch somebody.” I reach out behind me and move my hand around blindly until it makes contact with skin. Whoever’s attached to the wrist I’ve just grabbed is the one who gets dragged around, pushed against the side of the building, hauled into a kiss. I don’t know or care who it is; I just need to taste somebody who isn’t Travis. And who isn’t Jamie, based on the fact that I can hear him saying behind me, “Well, I certainly never expected to see that.” The person I’m kissing has a slick, skillful tongue, and lips that taste like vanilla and a little bit of coconut—Christ, that’s the last thing I need, to kiss someone who tastes the way Travis smells. Frustrated, I lean harder against the body, which is… softer than expected? Squishy in the absolute weirdest of places? I raise a hand to touch the person’s waist, which has much more of a curve than I’m expecting, and—oh. So that’s who it is. I lean away and sigh, turning to slump against the wall and only now bothering to open my eyes. Jamie’s watching me with a delighted, puzzled expression, and Alex is hanging off him, face buried in his neck to try to smother his laughter. Still leaning against the wall where I’ve left her, Stohler says, “Got that out of your system?” I nod. She takes a tube of lip gloss from her pocket to reapply what I’ve taken away with my mouth. “Good. You know, I think it says a lot about my life choices that I hang out with the sort of people who consider kissing me the equivalent of a cold shower.” “You should stop hanging out with gay guys, then,” I suggest. “Or I should stop hanging out with a gay guy whose reaction to literally any problem is to try to put his dick in it,” she says. She pauses, caps the gloss, and smirks at me. “So. First boy-on-girl kiss?” I nod. “How was it?” I shrug. “Your tits kind of got in the way, honestly.” We consider going back into the club after that, but it’s nearly two, which means they’re closing soon anyway. Alex and I head back inside to collect all of the jackets, and on the way back out, he pulls me into an alcove near the door. “Garen. Wait a second. I want to ask you something.” “Okay,” I say warily. “What’s up?” “I know that Jamie’s supposed to be staying at your place tonight, but I was sort of wondering if, uh—I mean, would it be a problem if I asked him to come back to mine, instead? With me?” I should say, That’s fine by me. I should say, I’m shockingly capable of controlling myself, I don’t need Jamie to babysit me so I don’t jump Travis. I should say, It’s up to Jamie, not me. Instead, what I say is, “What are you doing, Alex?” His brow furrows, so I continue, “Look, I’m going to say this exactly once, alright? It is obvious to everyone in the world that Jamie is into you. And you are a fucking idiot if you’re not into him, too—” “I am!” Alex protests, looking somewhat panicked. “Dude, I’m so into him, why the fuck would you think I’m—” “You said he should pick Rachael over you because she was more convenient, and then you blew him off on Halloween so you could get your dick sucked by some random chick from your school,” I say fiercely. “That’s not how you act when you’re into someone, and honestly, I can’t have this conversation with you right now, because every time I think about what a dick you’re being to my best friend, it makes me want to punch you in the face, and my doctor told me that getting into another fist fight so soon would probably leave me in yet another coma, and I’m tired of those. So just… shut up, and let’s go.” I manage two steps towards the door. Alex grabs my arm, dragging me back towards him, and says, somewhat desperately, “He’s the one who said it was easy to choose her over me, alright? He fucking said that, not me—” “He said it was an easy choice because he knew he wanted you. Not her, you fucking—oh my god, how dumb are you? Seriously.” “Me,” he says, disbelieving. “He was—wait, he wanted to—when he said it wasn’t a difficult choice for him, he meant it wasn’t going to be difficult to choose me over her? Because he wants that?” “You are so dumb,” I growl, just in case he didn’t get that message the first time. But he either doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t care, because he darts back outside, shoves Stohler and Travis’ coats at them, and kisses Jamie hard on the lips. Jamie looks startled, but pleased. I roll my eyes, pull on my jacket, and hand Ben both his and Jamie’s, ‘cause fuck knows I’m not going to carry that around just because my best friend’s too busy making out with Alex to put his jacket on. It takes us a while to figure out which direction we need to go in to get to the lot where our cars are. Ben eventually has to get out the GPS on my cell phone, because we’re the only two people sober enough to bother right now, and I’m effectively useless in scenarios like this. Right now, my distraction has come in the form of a Nissan full of teenage girls, who have pulled up next to us at a stoplight and are blasting fun. from their speakers. I entertain the girls—and myself, honestly—by singing along loudly, trying to get Ben to put the phone away and dance with me.

“But I still wake up, I still see your ghost, oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for!”

“You are so annoying, oh my god,” he says, trying to elbow away from me. “What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights, I don’t know anymore.” “I hope you get hit by a goddamn truck, I’m seri—” The rest of his sentence is drowned out by my ohs and woahs, and the honking as the cars behind the girls with the music try to alert them to the light that has now turned green. The girls reluctantly drive off, peering back at us through the windows, and I keep singing without accompaniment, shooting increasingly pouty looks at Ben. Jamie smirks at him and says, “You realize that the look on his face means he expects you to sing along with him, right?” “I don’t sing,” Ben says. Alex shoots him an unimpressed look and says, “You’re so full of shit, dude. You’ve got a great voice.” He actually does, though it’s not as good as mine. I’ve never been able to figure out why he’s so reluctant to sing with me, because it’s definitely not for lack of talent. He glares at me, and I glare back, making my woahs progressively louder until he finally sighs, punches me in the ribs, and heads off in what I assume is the direction of the parking lot, joining in on the next verse, “This is it, boys, this is war. What are we waiting for? Why don’t we break the rules already?” My woah becomes a whoop of glee, and then I’m taking off down the sidewalk, climbing over benches and picking up the rest of the song. Travis is blinking around at Ben in surprise, like he’s never heard him sing until now. Maybe he hasn’t—Ben isn’t as upfront about his vocal abilities as I am, presumably because he’s not as much of an attention whore as I am. Alex is too busy sucking marks into the side of Jamie’s neck to really pay attention, but Jamie is scowling at Ben and saying, “I can’t believe they let you into Juilliard, if that’s all you’ve got.” To my surprise, Ben laughs and shakes his head. “You try too hard to hate me, sometimes. I know that I’ve got a good voice, and I know you think so, too. So just shut up and go back to dry-humping my friend, alright?” Jamie does indeed return his focus to Alex after that, though not without another mulish glare in Ben’s general direction. After we’ve finished “Some Nights,” I try to see if I can convince him to sing along with “We Are Young,” but he just shakes his head and says, “If you want me to keep singing with you, you’re going to have to choose another band. You know my range isn’t the same as yours. I have trouble reaching the higher notes—” “You have trouble reaching the higher shelves in the medicine cabinet, I bet,” Jamie announces, and Stohler goes mad with giggles next to him. “For fuck’s sake, James, shut up!” Ben bursts out. “I’m not even that short! You’re just freakishly tall, is the real problem. I’m five foot six, that’s not exactly dwarfism.” “The next shortest person is McCall, and you’re still five inches shorter than he is,” Jamie points out. “The next shortest person is Stohler, and I’m only two inches shorter than her.” “Stohler doesn’t count, she’s a girl.” “That’s getting to be a recurring theme tonight, I think,” Stohler says dryly. I give her a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Sorry. If it helps, I’d probably be very attracted to you, if I were into chicks.” She returns the shoulder pat and says, “It’s okay. You’re not my type anyway,” then laughs when I look offended. By the time we reach the cars, Travis is ready to just pour himself into the passenger seat of my car, and Ben is still whispering mutinously about how my doctor says maybe I’m not done growing yet, he says some people have growth spurts in their first few years of college, which doesn’t really help his case, but which amuses the hell out of Jamie. Jamie, who Alex takes aside and asks, “Hi. So. Do you want to spend the night?” Jamie’s eyebrows go up. “What, at your place?” “Yeah,” Alex says, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “With me. Please.” I contemplate telling him that this is maybe the sort of thing that they need to have an actual conversation about, not just get naked and touch each other about, but that’s a glass house I’m not yet prepared to throw any stones from. Besides, I guess I don’t need to, because Jamie shakes his head a little and says reluctantly, “I shouldn’t. If I come with you, that means those two—” He jerks his head towards me and Travis, who is thankfully already bundled up in the car and playing with the radio, “—will be spending the night in bed together without adult supervision. Which means you and I wouldn’t be the only people having sex tonight.” “Jamie,” I say irritably, “I appreciate the concern, but I can handle it.” “Yeah, well, you handling it is exactly what I’m worried about,” Jamie says. “You know I couldn’t care less about that crazy bitch he’s dating, but I care about you. I love you, and I don’t want you to get hurt if you sleep with a boy who’s still going to be dating someone else in the morning, alright?” I fold my arms over my chest and scowl at him. “I’m not going to sleep with him, okay, dude? He’s drunk. I’ll just take him back, put him to bed, and sleep on the couch. It’s fine. If you want to go with Alex, you can.” He licks his lips. He so wants to go with Alex. But he says, “Are you sure?” I pull him forward and give him a firm kiss on the lips, then say, “I’m sure. Go. Enjoy yourself. And enjoy Alex’s dick, because seriously, I know I was wasted when he and I banged, so I barely remember most of it, but I do remember that that thing is fucking gigantic. It’s like the Loch Ness Monster of cocks.” “I know, right?” Jamie says, grinning, unable to stop himself from tumbling back and making a grab for Alex’s crotch. Ben just rolls his eyes and gets into his car, saying to Stohler as she climbs into the passenger seat, “I should probably warn you: the second they’re in that backseat, they’re going to start screwing around. So, keep your eyes forward, and if I look like I’m considering driving us into a guard rail, please try to talk me out of it.” “I’m depressingly used to being in a car with gay men who can’t stop fucking, so I’ll be fine,” Stohler reassures him, then leans out her window to call to me as Ben drives away, “See you later, Anderson! Do your best not to tap that fine, freckled ass!”

I give her the finger and climb into my car. Travis is lounging against the window and has finally settled on a pop punk band I like enough to listen to, but not enough to bother taking the CD out of my dad’s car most of the time. He offers me a tipsy, sleepy, beautiful smile and says, “Heading back to your place now?”

I swallow hard and nod. “Yep. My place.” Amusingly, he doesn’t realize that it’s just the two of us until we’ve pulled into my driveway and I’m guiding him through my front door. He pauses in the middle of my living room, frowns around, and says, “Where’s James?” “Not here,” I say, and he makes an I figured that part out already face. I amend, “He went with Alex. He, um… it’s just us, tonight. You and me.” “Oh,” he says, seeming startled. I edge past him before he can freak out about that, and lead the way down to my room. He doesn’t seem to have bothered to bring anything to sleep in, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a heart attack if he sleeps in just his boxers, so I dig two sets of sweatpants out of my closet and toss one onto the bed, telling him, “You can sleep in those. I’ll be right back.” Never in my life have I actually bothered to change into sleepwear in the bathroom, even when I’ve got someone over. Usually I just pull off my shirt, or strip out of everything, but right now, I think I need a minute to just… breathe. To get my shit together. By the time I return to my room, Travis is sprawled out on my bed, wearing his just t-shirt and my sweatpants, and holy god, why did I let Jamie go with Alex? I force a tight smile, flick off the lights, and fling myself down on the couch with a simple, “Goodnight.” “You’re an idiot,” Travis says, because he’s fucking rude and doesn’t know how to say goodnight like a normal person, apparently. But then he says, voice soft in the darkness and silence, “It’s your bed, dude. You don’t have to sleep on the couch.” I really, really do. And he’s an even bigger idiot, if he thinks that he and I can share a bed tonight, after what happened on the dance floor, without somebody getting touched in their sleep. “It’s fine.” “It’s not fine, you’re being dumb. Come here,” he orders, and I can hear the shifting of fabric, like he’s pulling back the covers and beckoning me over. Because it’s pitch-black and I know he won’t be able to see it, I punch myself in the face, since it’s honestly the only appropriate reaction. There’s a pause, and then he says uncertainly, “What was that noise?” “Nothing,” I say, punching myself again, hoping that’ll help me calm down and get my head out of my ass. “What noise?” “I heard—whatever, it doesn’t matter. Can you just get in the fucking bed?” he asks. I sigh and maybe punching myself wasn’t the best idea, because that must be why my body is hauling itself off the couch and crossing the room. For good measure, I stop by my computer and jiggle the mouse to bring it out of sleep mode. I’m still barely sleeping these days, so I might as well turn on some music so I’ll have something to concentrate on besides how badly I want to burrow down under those covers and spoon this douchebag for the rest of the weekend.

Fortunately, the computer screen illuminates the room in a pale bluish glow that means I can crawl into bed next to Travis without accidentally touching him. Unfortunately, the moment I’ve settled down, he rolls onto his side so that he can face me. “Thanks for taking me out tonight.”

“You’re welcome. Go to sleep,” I say, because if he’s unconscious, I can definitely behave myself. It’s him being awake and staring at me while I’m trying to stare at the ceiling that’s the problem. “I had a really good birthday,” he replies. “I’m glad. Go to sleep,” I order. Maybe I should’ve punched him in the face, instead of myself. And then he whispers, “Last year was better, though.” Last year, when we decided to give this thing between us a shot. When I got to kiss him, and touch him, and suck him, when I had his fucking beautiful dick in my hands, my mouth, my fucking throat. I squeeze my eyes shut. That’s not fair. I’m just a stupid, weak, selfish man, and he’s so gorgeous, and it’s not fair. But whatever barrier I’ve been clinging to is broken now, and I find myself saying, “If you were single, that’s what we’d have done this year, too.” He laughs, a low and throaty sound, and says, words full of promise, “You mean, it’s where we would’ve started.” “No,” I say carefully, rolling onto my own side now so that I can watch his face, make sure I’m not crossing the line with my words. “If you were single, I would’ve started by kissing you. In the club? When we were dancing? I’d have pulled you into a dark corner, pressed you up against a wall, gotten my mouth on yours.” I lick my lips. “The last time you kissed me—in August, when I was in rehab—I didn’t even get a chance to kiss you back.” “I know,” he says hoarsely, “and before that—May—the last time you kissed me, I didn’t kiss you back, either. The last time we really—” “The night I came back. I know,” I echo. “If you were single, that wouldn’t be true anymore. I’d have kissed you already, dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. I’d be kissing you right now.” He closes his eyes and rolls onto his back, and for a moment, I think I’ve gone too far and ruined everything. But then he says, voice barely audible, “What else?” When I don’t speak, he says, “If I were single, what else would you do to me?” “If you were single,” I say quickly, before he can change his mind, “I’d have kissed you at the club, like I said, and I’d have taken you home, like I did, and once we were in bed—now—I’d kiss you again, bite your lip, suck your tongue into my mouth, anything to get at the taste of you. I’d be on top of you right now, holding you down and running my hands through your hair. It’d only take that much, and then I’d be hard already, because that’s all it takes for you to get me going. You bring me from zero to sixty in three seconds, and no one else can affect me like that. Y-You’d feel it, too, feel my cock pressed against you, but you wouldn’t give a fuck, you’d be hard, too—” “I am,” he says wildly, and I can’t help but sneak a glance downward. I can’t really see if he’s telling the truth, because he’s got one of his knees bent, so the blankets are draped widely enough to conceal him. I know I’m hard, though, and when I roll onto my back, even the friction of my sweatpants and the blankets against me is almost unbearable. “If you were single,” I repeat, clinging to that phrase like it’s making this all okay, “I’d get your shirt off. Sweatpants, too. And I’d kiss my way down your chest like I was trying to swallow every last one of your freckles. You’d want me to touch you, you’d ask me to stroke you off, but I wouldn’t be able to. That wouldn’t be enough for me. I’d peel off your boxers and swallow you right down to the fucking root, so the head of your cock was halfway down my throat.” He combs his shaking hands through his hair and says, “Fuck. Guess you weren’t kidding about that zero-to-sixty bit.” “I really wasn’t, no,” I agree. I still don’t know if this is okay. I still don’t know if this is what he wants, and I’m so terrified of saying too much and scaring him away right now. He takes a deep breath—at first I think it’s because he’s trying to brace himself, but then I realize it’s just because he’s so turned on that he’s sort of forgetting to breathe normally. Eyes still closed, he asks, “Then what?” “If you were single and I had your cock in my mouth,” I say, and huh, that’s definitely not what the set-up of this situation had been a few minutes ago, “I’d have my fingers inside you, too. Just one to start, all slick with lube, stretching you out a little. God, I bet you’re so fucking tight, Travis. H-How long has it been, since you’ve had anyone in you?” He gives a little jerk at that, like he’s trying desperately to stop himself from thrusting up against the blankets for more friction against his dick. It takes a moment for him to focus enough to reply, “Ten months. January, not since the last time you f—you’re the only one who’s ever done anything like that to me. It’s only ever been you and—” He falters, licks his too-dry lips, then goes for broke and whispers, “And me. Myself. I—sometimes, I need it, and I do it to myself, and I think about it being you—” “Fuck,” I groan, and then I have to bite down hard on my tongue to stop myself from coming, because the mental image of Travis fucking himself with his fingers, of him thinking about me when he’s alone in bed… it’s almost too much. I feel like I can’t breathe right now, so it’s a shock when I’m able to speak. “If you were single, and your cock was in my mouth, and my fingers were in your ass—” God, this list just keeps getting longer, doesn’t it? But my voice breaks, and I can’t manage to get anything else out. Travis has the heels of his hands pressed against his closed eyelids, like that’ll help him picture it better. His voice is little more than a wrecked pant when he says, “Please. Please, Garen, please keep talking.” And then the words are spilling out of me all at once. “I’d need to be inside you. Fuck, I’d want to drag out the foreplay, but I wouldn’t be able to, I’d need to be in you right now. I’d want you on your back, right like you are now, so that I could see your face as my dick slid into you, inch by inch, so I could kiss you, taste you. You’d be digging your heels into the back of my thighs, trying to pull me deeper into you, and once I’d bottomed out, I’d need to stay there, to wait, to give you a minute to adjust to the feeling of being full of my cock again after all this time. And once you were ready, I’d get your legs up around my waist, o-or maybe get them up so your calves were over my shoulders, so your thighs would press back against your chest every time I thrust into you, and you’d be practically bent in half, spread open, taking it, a-and you’d feel so fucking good, and I’d kiss you, I’d be whispering in your ear, telling you how much I love you—” He lets out a strangled cry next to me, and I’m certain that that’s it; that’s the thing I’ve said that he thinks is going too far. But then I look over at him, and his mouth has dropped open, and his back is bowed, and his eyes are squeezed shut, and his hands are clenched into fists around the sheets, and he gives a final jerk, and I realize that he’s coming, all without either of us ever touching his cock. Even though I can see, even though I’m so positive that that’s what is happening—I’ve tried so hard to forget what he looks like in climax, but I can’t—I still have to be sure, I still have to breathe out, “Travis. Fuck, babe, did you just come?” He’s still too far gone to do anything other than give a frantic nod and choke out, “Y-Yeah. Christ, your voice, Garen.” And for all my years of bragging, I’ve never actually made someone come just from the sound of my voice before. It’s too much—I let out something embarrassingly close to a whine and shove my hand into my sweatpants, wrapping it tight around my dick and stroking myself roughly. It’s the only thing I can think to do that will stop me from stripping out of the rest of my clothes and rolling over on top of him, swiping some of the cum that’s probably drying against his hip now and using it as lube to finger him open so that I can line up and press inside, fucking into him while he’s still spent and oversensitive, reaching down to wrap my fingers around his beautiful dick so that I can feel when he starts to harden again in my hand-- “Oh my god,” he mutters, and a little too late, I become aware of the fact that I’ve been saying all of these things aloud. I can’t bring myself to care. “I want you so badly,” I say, my voice cracking around the words. “God, Trav, I wish I could be inside you right now.” His hips give another faint jerk at that, like his body’s already trying to get hard again. I curl my hand over the head of my cock and oh, this won’t take long at all, not with Travis sated and still half-twitching with pleasure next to me, not with him turning his head to watch as I touch myself, not—fuck, I need to see more of him. Neither knowing nor caring if this is overstepping a boundary, I throw my free hand out to the side and grab a fistful of his t-shirt, yanking it up to expose most of his torso. He sits up suddenly, and for one horrible second, I think he’s going to leave. That thought is almost enough to make me cry, but then he shucks off his t-shirt and sprawls back out next to me. He’s stretched out over my bed, all smooth, freckled skin and faint ridges of muscle. Then he hooks his thumbs over the waistband of the borrowed sweatpants--my sweatpants, which are now sticky with his cum—and he hesitates, clearly trying to decide whether or not he should pull them off, too. Slowly, he shifts, exposing just his hipbones, and that’s all it takes before I’m practically going blind with pleasure and spilling over my fist with a cry that maybe sounds a little bit like his name. It feels so good it almost hurts, and I find myself needing to curl in on myself a little, rolling onto my side to face him. Between the earlier heat of the club and the sweat that’s slicking up my skin now, my hairspray has completely failed me. There’s a shock of dark brown hair that has lost its battle with gravity and fallen down just enough to block most of Travis’ face my view. It must be just as successful in blocking my eyes from his view, and that must be a problem for him, because he reaches over and cards his trembling fingers through my hair, combing it back out of the way. His fingertips are working against my scalp, and it feels fantastic, but it’s that touch—that intimate brush of skin, only moments after we’ve both come—that makes me realize that this is going too far. This is what everyone else was afraid of. This is what Joss was afraid of. This is what I want, and this is what I can’t have, and this is what makes me say, “We should go to sleep.” I watch his throat work as he swallows, and then he nods and whispers, “O-Okay.” We both roll onto our sides, facing away from each other. Neither of us says anything for the rest of the night, but I don’t think either of us sleeps, either.